Useful Verses

“Let us speak the useful verses,

while the dumbstruck,

maddened crowd disperses.”

“Let us read from Malachi,

pluck no splinters

from a jaundiced eye,

sacrifice the blind and lame,

spill their blood in mammon’s name.”

We will read our fairy tales,

while governmental welfare fails

our finger runs beneath the lines

the poorest feel the pitchfork’s tines.

We are not lilies;

we spin, and we toil,

they consider us not

worth a drop of oil.

“O let us commence

the drawing of lots,

to find the recipients

for the blackest of spots,

test and count and measure for measure

‘til they must work to fund our leisure.

Let us read from holy writ;

parables of mites and talents,

those allegoried fabled scenes,

to justify the end of means.”